Pizza The Bay Debuts at the Marketplace
Pizza The Bay co-founder and Head Chef, Amrafel Thomas, cuts into one of his hundreds of sourdough pizza creations. The restaurant will have its official opening on February 24.
Two friends are officially launching the opening of their artisanal restaurant, "Pizza The Bay," this Friday at the Marketplace to "give people a different type of pizza experience in Castro Valley."
"All of this is just the beginning for us," said co-founder and head chef Amrafel Thomas. "We started this journey about two years ago. It's been a lot of work to get here, but we're grateful for what we started and we are pushing toward taking things a step above."
The restaurant is tucked away on the second floor of the Castro Valley Marketplace building right next door to Oculto. Pizza The Bay serves 12-inch sourdough pizzas, calzones, sandwiches, chicken wings, and salads. While the restaurant has been taking in customers for the last two weeks, it officially opens this Friday, February 24.
Thomas and his friend and co-founder, Shimei Burgueno, said they had considered opening their pizzeria in a different location in Lafayette but were persuaded by Marketplace management that Castro Valley was hungry for artisanal pizza.
"The response has been very positive. People appreciate and are excited to try our way of doing pizza and tell their friends," Burgueno said.
Both men are from the San Francisco Peninsula, and their families have been friends for more than 20 years. With the help of small business loans, personal savings, and support from family, friends, and 12 employees, they are now building on their dream.
Burgueno had an early career as a model for an agency in San Francisco and says he learned business management from his dad, who runs his own painting company.
"Seeing the increase in prioritizing cleanliness during the pandemic, I started my own maintenance company in late 2020, where I would be doing jobs like pressure washing, window cleaning, and janitorial services," Burgueno said.
Thomas came to the Bay Area nine years ago from Guatemala, where he worked as a real estate agent but had a passion for baking and opened a few bakeries in his home country. When he got to California, he put that passion for baking to work.
"I worked my way up from dishwasher to a top chef at Pizza Hacker in San Francisco and Marin County," Thomas said. " My mentor was the pizza hacker himself, Jeff Krupman. This is where I learned how to make and put my own spin on the famous sourdough crust that Pizza Hacker is known for."
The co-founders said that the idea for a sit-down pizzeria germinated about two years ago. After working on recipes and business strategies for the last eight months, they started making pizzas out of a rented kitchen (also called a ghost kitchen) in San Mateo. They sold pizza for online delivery services and catering gigs.
"We got a lot of great responses to our pizzas, but they are best when they're fresh, so having a sit-down restaurant was the direction we wanted to go," Burgueno said.
The Pizza The Bay menu offers about 14 pizza topping styles, such as the classic pepperoni, Margherita-style, and BBQ chicken pizzas. But Thomas has a book of about 100 different types of pizzas, including a "Washington Square" style topped with prosciutto, egg, parsley, oregano, and Italian Grana Padano cheese; and a "Cinque Terre" style with roasted zucchini, basil, sweet onion, garlic, and Fresno chilis.
The restaurant opens at 12 noon each day, closes at 9 p.m. during the week and at 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Takeout orders can be made at the Pizza The Bay website (https://www.pizzathebay.com/)